Janet kissed the rose-petal cheek. “You are my family, all of you here at the Point. Middlebrook’s only where I work and have a few acquaintances, but this is home.” Janet shook her head. “No, Mrs. N, I won’t forget any of you.”
Phoebe Newkirk gave a satisfied nod.
Janet started for the door. “I’ll bring the keys back after we’re through.”
“Take your time, my dear. Take all the time you need.”
The older woman stood on the porch and watched the couple cross the road. She waved as Janet and Stephen sped away.
Suddenly Janet broke into laughter.
Stephen looked puzzled. “What’s funny?”
“Mrs. N. She always reminds me of a cartoon character.”
He noogled his head. “By golly, that’s it: I taut I taw a puddy tat.”
Their laughter filled the car, and Janet reveled in the few moments of innocent frivolity.
A short time later Stephen pulled the car in front of the carriage house and cut the engine. He rested his hands on the steering wheel and looked through the windshield. Janet sat patiently and waited for him to make the first move. Finally, he reached for the door handle.
They got out of the car and he followed her across the yard and around to the back of the house. Flinging wide her arms, she made a grand presentation of the fortress-like structure on the far side of the courtyard.
“Ta-da!” she announced. “One of my favorite places: the shot tower. Lancaster-constructed and Lancaster’s contribution to the Union effort.”
Stephen let out a low whistle. “Wow,” he said. “Wow.” He scurried off with Janet on his heels. “This is terrific.” He skidded to a halt and Janet slammed into his wide and sturdy back.
“Oops,” she said. “You need to give a signal when you’re going to stop.”
He turned and smiled. “Why? We bump into each other so well.”
Janet blushed.
Stephen stood, his hands fisted on his hips, and squinted up at the tower. “We can go inside—can’t we? I mean, it’s safe enough to take the risk.” He grabbed Janet’s arm and tugged. “You’ll let me see it all, won’t you?”
“If you don’t have a conniption first,” Janet said with a laugh. “We’ve got all day.”
Janet leaned against a wall, folded her arms and waited while he circled the tower, touching the stone and running his hand over the rough exterior. They went inside and climbed the stairs to the top. Stephen examined the fireplace, sticking his head up the chimney as far as it would go. He paced the ring of the room, testing the creaking boards beneath his feet. Then he lay down, stretched his long body across the section and let his head dangle over the edge of the cut-out in the middle of the floor.
“Get back!” Janet warned. “You’ll pitch off and break your neck.”
“Just might,” he agreed. “It’s a pretty long way down.” He clambered to his feet and swiped dust from the front of his jeans. “A drop you called it.”
“For molten lead—not people,” she said and laughed again.
He pelted her with questions, and Janet took the time to explain how the system operated, and even told him about the time she climbed through one of the windows onto the ledge that looked out toward the sea.
“Scanning the horizon for varmits were you?”
“Something like that.”
An hour later, after Stephen had his fill of investigating the old structure, they headed toward the house. At the edge of the yard Stephen stopped and turned back to the tower.
“Wow,” he said for the umpteenth time.
“Let me show you the rest,” Janet said.
Jingling the keys in her hand, they crossed the courtyard and turned the corner. When she opened the side door of the carriage house, the hinges protested mildly and she thought of Duffy and his religious dedication to daily maintenance.
Inside, the Rolls was pulled just far enough inside for its rear bumper to clear the garage door. Absentmindedly, Janet ran her hand over the hood, looked at her fingertips and thought again of Duffy. He would be sickened at the sight of the fine layer of dust that had settled over the room and covered the car.
“This was my grandmother’s car.” Her voice went mushy. “Although Duffy actually thought of it as his.” A frown creased her brow. “He’d have a fit if he saw it now.”
“What’s that one over there, under the tarp?”
“That old relic? I think at one time or another it passed to almost all the Lancaster men. It was my dad’s favorite.” Janet walked across the room to stand by the covered vehicle. “It hasn’t been out on the road for years and years. Duffy used to spend an hour or so a couple times a month keeping it up. He always said he hated to see any machine fall into disgrace. He never cared much for this car—I think it intimidated him. But, as he’d say, he did his duty.”
Stephen lifted the edge of the cover to reveal the gentle curve of a fender. He stopped short.
“Do you know what this is?” He pulled back the covering. “Janet, this is a 1932 Bugatti.”
“So?”
“So? This isn’t just any old car. It’s a collector’s item. This is—” He plowed fingers though the shock of heavy hair and scratched his head. “This is unbelievable. Ettore Bugatti was the master automobile builder. He actually believed his cars had breeding.” He grinned. “He even refused to sell one of his creations to the King of Albania because he said the man had bad table manners.” He opened the door. “May I?” he said, motioning inside.
Janet laughed. “Be my guest. You can toot the horn, turn all the knobs, and make putt-putt sounds if you want to.”
He looked up at her. “The key’s in the ignition.”
“Duffy always did that with both cars. He said if he ever needed the key, he’d know where to find it.”
Stephen touched the steering wheel with reverence and caressed the dashboard.
“Right here,” he said, “see the fittings of solid ivory? And here, the Jaegar stopwatch in the center of the steering wheel? Yeah, this is pure Bugatti all the way.”
“I had no idea it was anything so special,” Janet said.
She watched him step out, pull the tarp back over the car, and gently tuck in the edges around the spoked wheel. “You should have a car like this,” she told him.
He frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you seem to appreciate it so much.”
“I’ve always respected craftsmanship,” he said. “And tradition. Family tradition and pride in one’s work is everything. It connects you to somebody—to a past. I guess I never had that.”
Janet felt a slight chill at his intensity.
They left the carriage house and walked across the grounds.
“Come on, I’ll show you the house.”
Janet looked with sadness at the unkempt lawn. Withered leaves lay thick and soggy upon the tall grass as they waded across the yard. She stumbled on a vine that snaked its way through the roughage and snagged her shoe. Stephen’s arm reached out and caught her before she fell. He held her for the space of a heartbeat.
“You can let me go now,” she said.
He smiled. “Do I have to?”
She laughed and pushed away.
At the door, she turned the key and they stepped inside. Sheet-covered furniture sat like great hulking things in the ghostly evening shadows. Janet flipped the switch but no lights came on.
“I guess Lettie had the power cut off,” she said.
She gave him a tour of the lower floor and turned toward the staircase.
“Would you like to see my studio?” she asked, and immediately regretted the invitation. One day she was going to have to learn not to be so open and trusting with people—handsome, sooty-haired strangers. But not today.
“I want to see it all,” he said.
Bypassing the second floor, Janet rushed them by her grandmother’s bedroom and went straight to the third floor and turned left down the corridor. She pushe
d through the door into a misty—almost ethereal—light that filtered through from overhead.
Not many people have been in this room,” she said. “It’s comes too close to my center, too close to who I really am.”
Stephen nodded as if he understood. He walked around the room looking at her work.
“You still paint?”
Janet straightened a canvas. “Not in years. Like you, I guess I’m looking for inspiration.”
“You’re too good to let it go.” He picked up a small, unframed canvas of a little boy flying a kite. “I really like this.”
“Then it’s yours,” she said.
“You’re sure? Looks like a lot of work went into it.”
Janet smiled. “It did, and yes, I’m sure.”
She turned from the room. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to visit my grandmother’s room. Will you come with me?”
Without speaking, he nodded his head ever so slightly.
Memories, seasoned with familiar sounds and smells, flooded Janet’s mind when they reached the door on the second floor. She reached for the doorknob but took her hand away. Stephen grasped the knob, turned it slowly and pushed the door inward. A heavy scent of sweetness, almost like the odor of rancid honey, hung in the air.
Janet gasped and clutched Stephen’s arm. Chairs and tables were overturned and the drapes hung in long, tattered shreds. The bed was a tumble of rumpled covers that had at one time been the elegant hand-trimmed labors of Lettie’s absolute perfection. And Elizabeth Lancaster’s undergarments were twisted about the four posters and drooped like obscene banners.
“Who could have done such a thing?” Janet cried.
“Vandals?”
“Briar’s Point doesn’t have vandals. A rascal or two, but not vandals.”
Stephen pointed to the dresser. “Well, somebody was sending a message.”
Slashed across the mirror in ragged, scarlet letters, were the words LONG LIVE THE KING!
Janet swayed and clasped a bedpost for support. Fury rumbled in her brain and crashed against her ears. She could see Stephen’s lips moving, mouthing words, but the thunder inside her head drowned out his voice. Her hands unclenched and itched to begin setting the room to rights. She marched around the bed jerking down intimate clothing and straightening the bedclothes. He made an effort to help but Janet muttered to herself and motioned him away. He moved to one side of the room as she continued mumbling, accompanied by an occasional grunt. Her foot struck something beneath the edge of the bed. Without speaking, she bent and retrieved an ashtray overflowing with reefer stubs, flattened and filthy. A raw growl of pain escaped her lips.
“Janet—”
“This is my problem, Stephen. I’ll handle it.”
She carried the ashtray to the adjoining bathroom, dumped the contents into the toilet and flushed. She turned on the water, dunked a washcloth in the basin and swiped the wet cloth over the dresser mirror. When every trace of the message was gone, she rinsed the washcloth under the faucet again. The water puddled in the sink and swirled down the drain like so much wasted blood.
Stephen was still standing in a corner when she stepped from the bathroom.
“I’m ready to go now.”
He made no reply as he put his arm around her waist and walked with her from the room.
Janet did not speak again until they were heading back toward the Point.
“We’ve got to stop by the sheriff’s office,” she said. “Lije has to know what’s happened.”
“Who do you think would do such a thing?” Stephen wondered aloud.
“Nobody with a lick of sense in their ugly head,” Janet said and pointed to the building beside the post office.
There was a ‘Town Hall’ sign over the door. Stephen pulled in and parked beside a sand-covered patrol car.
The wind coming in off the water was bitter and whipped up little dust devils that swirled around their legs. Janet stalked up the steps and pushed through the front door. Stephen was directly behind her. The building contained only two offices: The taxes and utilities office was on the right and no light shown through the glass panel in the door. A few paces down, on the left, a light glowed from the inside, illuminating the words on the glass: Elijah Wiley, Sheriff. Down in the corner, in smaller letters, were the words ‘Come In.’
Two men in the room looked up from the chessboard between them when Janet and Stephen walked in. A wide smile broke across the face of the older man.
“Well, I declare,” he said, getting to his feet. “Janet Lancaster.” He glanced at Stephen with a sheriff’s curiosity.
“Lije,” she said, “this is Stephen Prescott, a friend of mine from Middlebrook.”
Sheriff Wiley extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Prescott.” He gestured to his chess partner. “This is Alvie, my clerk and occasional deputy.”
Alvie raised his hand in a half-salute.
The sheriff glanced back at Janet. “What brings you young folks to the Point on such a blustery day?”
“It started out to be just a visit to Heather Down,” Janet said. “But it didn’t turn out that way.”
The sheriff looked concerned. “How’s that?”
“The house has been vandalized,” Stephen said.
The sheriff’s stare turned to granite. “Robbery?”
“Not that I noticed,” Janet said. “But I didn’t take the time to do an inventory. It seemed to be only Grandmother’s bedroom that suffered the insults and degradation. From the looks of things, it might’ve been an all-night dope smoking party. I cleaned everything up.”
“Janet!”
Janet dropped her eyes and threaded her fingers. “Lord, I didn’t stop to think. I’m sorry, Lije. I guess I ruined any evidence for you.”
“Want me to run out there and have a look around?” Alvie said. “Maybe I can pick up on something.”
“We’ll both go,” the sheriff said, snatching a tattered leather jacket from the wall hook. “I wonder how they got in? If I know Lettie and her crew, they left that place locked up tighter than an old maid’s corset.” He grinned at Janet. “No offense meant.”
“None taken, Lije.”
“Now Janet, don’t you worry, we’ll keep an eye on the place.” He slapped his hat against the side of his leg before squashing it onto his head. “Dopers,” he snorted. “By God, what’s this world coming to?”
“Do you need the key?” Janet asked as they all headed for the door.
“Got one,” the sheriff said. “Being a trustee for the estate, Ian Newkirk wanted to make sure that the house was checked on a fairly regular basis—you know lawyers—so he dropped off a key. But I sure as hell never figured I’d need it.”
Janet stood with Stephen and watched as the two men jumped into the patrol car. Gravel sprayed from beneath the tires and the spinning wheels left an angry wake of sand.
TEN
Stephen dropped out of sight in the days following the incident at Heather Down. The familiar Mustang was missing from the parking lot, and Janet would have spent more time considering its whereabouts had she not been sidetracked by an unexpected event. Such a simple thing—the phone ringing.
It was nearly quitting time at the library. Sebastian had just pulled on his coat when he stopped to answer the phone.
“It’s for you, Janet,” he said, stuffing his fingers into worn woolen gloves and blowing her a kiss. “See you later.”
Janet waved and punched the blinking light. “Hello.”
“Who answered the phone?” the voice asked.
Janet felt a slight flutter in her chest, a severe weakness like an injured bird trying to take flight from danger.
“Who is this?”
“Jan, baby.” The familiar laugh was slightly edgy. “It’s me.”
Her throat closed up and her mouth went dry. She tried to speak, but no words came out.
He laughed again. “Surprised?”
She forced herself to swallow and her t
hroat relaxed a bit. “A little,” she said.
“I don’t wonder. I’m afraid our last night together wasn’t very pleasant. And it was all my fault. But let’s not talk about the past. I need to see you, baby. There’s so much I have to say, so much to apologize for. I was a fool—an arrogant fool. I know that now. God, Jan.” His words seemed to tumble out, one on top of the other. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to pick up the phone and call—to hear your voice, maybe hear you laugh. I always loved your laughter.”
“But you didn’t call, did you, Adam?”
He offered no reply.
“Why didn’t you?”
Janet could hear his intake of breath. “Pride, I guess. But I’m here now. I’m here and I’m ready to do whatever it takes to get you back. How ’bout it, baby? Can I drop by and see you?”
“Drop by from where?”
“At the lake—the marina. I’m aboard a boat that belongs to an old friend of the family. We just docked a few minutes ago, and I couldn’t wait to get to a phone.”
“How long are you here for?”
“I don’t know. I guess that more or less depends on you. How ’bout it, can I come by tonight?”
Janet frowned and rubbed her brow. Maybe his coming over would be a good thing. Perhaps then the past would be put behind her once and for all.
“Okay. Around eight.”
“Thanks, Jan. You won’t be sorry.”
We’ll see, Janet thought. Her hand was shaking as she hung up the phone.
Later that evening, Janet did little in the way of getting ready for Adam’s visit. She felt no particular need to try to impress him. The time for that had passed. She smoothed a moisturizing stick over her dry lips before applying a light cranberry glaze. Butterflies congregated in the pit of her stomach and she wondered how she would feel seeing him again. Then the doorbell rang, and she pulled in a hurtful breath. The breath was long and deep and burned her lungs.
Janet opened the door. A sweep of feelings flooded her mind. Feelings, bittersweet and tasting of kisses and spring rain, rushed like a torrent, engulfing, threatening to drown her. He was more gorgeous than she remembered. Eyes flashed like neon and his teeth sparkled against the perfectly bronzed face. Hair the color of summer moonlight seemed to know exactly how to fall for the most dramatic effect.
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